BERLIN, April 20: The new pope was a member of the Hitler Youth during World War II, but an expert said on Wednesday that any man of his age in Germany would have been forced to join the movement. Joseph Ratzinger has repeatedly said he was an unwilling participant in the Hitler Youth, which he joined at the age of 14 in 1941.

In his book, “Memoirs: Milestones 1927-1997”, Joseph Ratzinger recalls that the Hitler Youth and the girls’ equivalent, the German Girls’ League, “were closely linked to the school, so my brother and sister also had to take part in the activities”.

The cardinal himself had entered a seminary in 1939 to begin his training as a priest, but recalled in an interview with German journalist Peter Seewald that “as soon as I left the seminary, I did not go straight into the Hitler Youth”.

“And that was difficult because in order to qualify for the reduction in schooling fees that I needed, you had to prove you had paid a visit to the Hitler Youth.” So he joined, along with most of his seminary class.

Wolfgang Wippermann, a professor of contemporary history at Berlin’s Free University, said that as a teenager in pre-war Germany, Joseph Ratzinger would have had no choice but to join the Hitler Youth, which he said became compulsory in 1939.

“This should not be held against him in any way. They all had to join at that time,” Wippermann said.

“Anyone who didn’t go found that life at school became difficult, that they were subject to extra disciplinary measures for example, or that they were not allowed to go on to high school or could not get an apprenticeship.”

In his autobiography, Ratzinger recalled that in 1943, with the war at its peak, Ratzinger and the rest of his seminary class were drafted into the German anti-aircraft corps, the Flak.

In Sept 1944, having reached military age, he was released from the Flak and was drafted into a labour detail commanded by men he described as “fanatical ideologues who terrorised us”.—AFP